Post by Marcello Bell on Dec 15, 2013 20:29:31 GMT -5
The lights click on. Marcello Bell stands before you. You begin to feel a little tingly in your pants. This is perfectly understandable.
First, Bryan Blaze, I wanted to say thank you for making a video to address me. Normally, I wouldn't extend my thanks for something that should be a matter of course, but judging by the behavior of one Evan Grey, this is the one promotion of which I've been a part where the wrestlers aren't expected to put any effort into hyping their matches.
Marcello shakes his pretty little head.
I'll get back to you in a moment after I speak to our mutual opponent, Evan Grey.
Evan, you call yourself the "Paragon of Insanity." Apparently you're some kind of wannabe rock star who worships Cthulhu for the shock value or some bullshit. Or maybe you're actually mentally ill, in which case I'm forced to question the mental faculties of whoever signed you on for a combat sport. Either way, your tissue is equally vulnerable, and I am equally eager to make your ugly face a little bit uglier.
Normally, I'd be lobbing verbal nukes your way instead of those little firecrackers you've just had the pleasure of hearing, but after your shameful lack of pre-match effort, I don't think you're worth it.
He smiles and looks up, as if he's thinking.
Oh, yes. Bryan Blaze. You think you're a better wrestler than me because I have money? What the hell kind of sense does that make? You say I'm a "one percenter" as if that means I can't bust your head in like a watermelon. Do you really think that? That somehow the fact that I can afford a personal trainer and nutritionist means you have the edge?
Or maybe you think I'm soft. Is that it? You think I've never had to work a day in my life, and the second the pain comes, I'll just roll over and give up?
Unfortunately for you, that's not how Marcello Bell rolls. You think I'm a douchebag because, with all my money, I choose a business where I'm not handed anything, right? The thing you don't seem to understand is, that's why I choose this profession.
He takes a step forward, reaches out, and tips the camera up so his face is centered.
You imagine for a minute that you're born in unbelievable poverty, no father in sight. And then when you're seven years old, your mother says everything's going to be better from now on. A man in a long car comes and takes you to a house that's bigger than the public school you've been going to. You meet a man who tells you he's going to be your daddy now. At first, everything is wonderful. You meet all kinds of nice people who all come to your new house to teach you about history and art and science. But then one day one of those nice people gives you a science test and you don't do so hot. The nice man tells you it's fine, but when he leaves, Daddy takes a belt across your back and makes a much more convincing case that it is not, in fact, fine. Your mother just watches. Things continue like that up through your teenage years. When you impress your adoptive father, it's like heaven. When you fail to do so, it's like hell.
And then one day, shortly before your eighteenth birthday, you're in the library, with its collection of ritual masks, medieval weaponry, and other items of historical interest, when you hear your mother scream. Heart racing, running purely on impulse, you kick open the glass over a decorative rapier, grab it, and run to her aid. And there's Daddy, standing over her sobbing, bleeding form. Tears well up in your eyes as he kicks her, and you let out a soft, hideous, pathetic sound somewhere between a growl and a sob. Daddy spins around, and before you know it, you've shoved that rapier through him, piercing his lung and nicking his heart. Unthinkingly, you watch him fall to the ground, and you fall beside your mother, checking to see if she's okay.
She isn't. Neither of them recover.
You spend months in court, defending yourself from a prosecuting attorney who claims you saw your mother dead and murdered the man who called himself your father in cold blood. Finally, in a rare moment of cosmic justice, you're found innocent of murder, and the homicide is ruled as self defense.
So now you're sitting at home in that big house, alone aside from the occasional maid or maintenance worker. And you start to think. You'd rather have stayed poor than to have things work out like this. And a thought you've kept buried for years begins to burrow its way through all those psychological barriers you built to keep it down. A horrible, world-shattering thought that can't be true, but you know it is:
She never loved him. She married him so that you'd have a better life. It's all your fault.
All the money, everything, it's tainted, and as much as you hate the man, maybe your "father" was right. Maybe you're not any good. Maybe you can't do anything but sit around and live off what's given to you. Part of you wishes you'd been found guilty. Part of you thinks you deserve it. In your mind, you're screaming as you walk down to the living room and pick up the remote, hoping to lose yourself in the colossal flatscreen television paid for with your mother's life.
Idly, you flip through the stations until you see something big and bright. Something larger than life. Two men in what looks like a boxing ring, but they certainly aren't boxing. One of them is knocked out of the ring. For just a moment, everything is forgotten and you're on the edge of your seat as the referee counts. Just before the referee says "ten," the man slides back into the ring. He unleashes a hellacious series of chops on his foe, punctuated with a kick to the chest. Suddenly you're aware that your fists are clenched, and you're-- it can't be-- you're smiling! These are people who make their own destiny. They aren't handed things. They take things.
Over the next few days, you watch classic matches, you read everything you can find about professional wrestling, and then, with a little bit of the fortune that is now yours, you begin to train as a wrestler. It's hard, damn hard, but if it weren't, you wouldn't want to do it. The thought of quitting never even crosses your mind. Because this is something you have to earn for yourself. This is something you buy not with money, but with sweat and tears and blood. And finally, you make it. You start wrestling, and make your way through several promotions, leaving two due to conflict with the management and with the third shutting down just as you were about to get a shot at the world title. A shot you earned.
But you don't let it get you down. You get off your ass and you find another promotion. You sign on. You're filled with excitement when you see your name on the official roster. And you train your heart out in preparation for your first match. Sure, it's a triple threat curtain jerker on live TV, and sure, you deserve better, but the management will see that soon enough. So you sit down to watch the video from the one opponent out of two who bothered to actually say something, and he spends all of ten seconds addressing you. During that time, he suggests that you're soft because you have money, and you're a douchebag because you want to actually earn something instead of having everything given to you. That you're "one of those one percenters who gets whatever he wants."
Tell me... what do you think you'd want then? I'll tell you what I want. I want to kick your fugly head in. I want to break you. I want to make you sob. I want to bring you face to face with the Ugly Truth.
You are right about one thing, Bryan.
I get what I want.
With that, our hero is finished talking. He gestures to the person behind the camera, and the video cuts off.
First, Bryan Blaze, I wanted to say thank you for making a video to address me. Normally, I wouldn't extend my thanks for something that should be a matter of course, but judging by the behavior of one Evan Grey, this is the one promotion of which I've been a part where the wrestlers aren't expected to put any effort into hyping their matches.
Marcello shakes his pretty little head.
I'll get back to you in a moment after I speak to our mutual opponent, Evan Grey.
Evan, you call yourself the "Paragon of Insanity." Apparently you're some kind of wannabe rock star who worships Cthulhu for the shock value or some bullshit. Or maybe you're actually mentally ill, in which case I'm forced to question the mental faculties of whoever signed you on for a combat sport. Either way, your tissue is equally vulnerable, and I am equally eager to make your ugly face a little bit uglier.
Normally, I'd be lobbing verbal nukes your way instead of those little firecrackers you've just had the pleasure of hearing, but after your shameful lack of pre-match effort, I don't think you're worth it.
He smiles and looks up, as if he's thinking.
Oh, yes. Bryan Blaze. You think you're a better wrestler than me because I have money? What the hell kind of sense does that make? You say I'm a "one percenter" as if that means I can't bust your head in like a watermelon. Do you really think that? That somehow the fact that I can afford a personal trainer and nutritionist means you have the edge?
Or maybe you think I'm soft. Is that it? You think I've never had to work a day in my life, and the second the pain comes, I'll just roll over and give up?
Unfortunately for you, that's not how Marcello Bell rolls. You think I'm a douchebag because, with all my money, I choose a business where I'm not handed anything, right? The thing you don't seem to understand is, that's why I choose this profession.
He takes a step forward, reaches out, and tips the camera up so his face is centered.
You imagine for a minute that you're born in unbelievable poverty, no father in sight. And then when you're seven years old, your mother says everything's going to be better from now on. A man in a long car comes and takes you to a house that's bigger than the public school you've been going to. You meet a man who tells you he's going to be your daddy now. At first, everything is wonderful. You meet all kinds of nice people who all come to your new house to teach you about history and art and science. But then one day one of those nice people gives you a science test and you don't do so hot. The nice man tells you it's fine, but when he leaves, Daddy takes a belt across your back and makes a much more convincing case that it is not, in fact, fine. Your mother just watches. Things continue like that up through your teenage years. When you impress your adoptive father, it's like heaven. When you fail to do so, it's like hell.
And then one day, shortly before your eighteenth birthday, you're in the library, with its collection of ritual masks, medieval weaponry, and other items of historical interest, when you hear your mother scream. Heart racing, running purely on impulse, you kick open the glass over a decorative rapier, grab it, and run to her aid. And there's Daddy, standing over her sobbing, bleeding form. Tears well up in your eyes as he kicks her, and you let out a soft, hideous, pathetic sound somewhere between a growl and a sob. Daddy spins around, and before you know it, you've shoved that rapier through him, piercing his lung and nicking his heart. Unthinkingly, you watch him fall to the ground, and you fall beside your mother, checking to see if she's okay.
She isn't. Neither of them recover.
You spend months in court, defending yourself from a prosecuting attorney who claims you saw your mother dead and murdered the man who called himself your father in cold blood. Finally, in a rare moment of cosmic justice, you're found innocent of murder, and the homicide is ruled as self defense.
So now you're sitting at home in that big house, alone aside from the occasional maid or maintenance worker. And you start to think. You'd rather have stayed poor than to have things work out like this. And a thought you've kept buried for years begins to burrow its way through all those psychological barriers you built to keep it down. A horrible, world-shattering thought that can't be true, but you know it is:
She never loved him. She married him so that you'd have a better life. It's all your fault.
All the money, everything, it's tainted, and as much as you hate the man, maybe your "father" was right. Maybe you're not any good. Maybe you can't do anything but sit around and live off what's given to you. Part of you wishes you'd been found guilty. Part of you thinks you deserve it. In your mind, you're screaming as you walk down to the living room and pick up the remote, hoping to lose yourself in the colossal flatscreen television paid for with your mother's life.
Idly, you flip through the stations until you see something big and bright. Something larger than life. Two men in what looks like a boxing ring, but they certainly aren't boxing. One of them is knocked out of the ring. For just a moment, everything is forgotten and you're on the edge of your seat as the referee counts. Just before the referee says "ten," the man slides back into the ring. He unleashes a hellacious series of chops on his foe, punctuated with a kick to the chest. Suddenly you're aware that your fists are clenched, and you're-- it can't be-- you're smiling! These are people who make their own destiny. They aren't handed things. They take things.
Over the next few days, you watch classic matches, you read everything you can find about professional wrestling, and then, with a little bit of the fortune that is now yours, you begin to train as a wrestler. It's hard, damn hard, but if it weren't, you wouldn't want to do it. The thought of quitting never even crosses your mind. Because this is something you have to earn for yourself. This is something you buy not with money, but with sweat and tears and blood. And finally, you make it. You start wrestling, and make your way through several promotions, leaving two due to conflict with the management and with the third shutting down just as you were about to get a shot at the world title. A shot you earned.
But you don't let it get you down. You get off your ass and you find another promotion. You sign on. You're filled with excitement when you see your name on the official roster. And you train your heart out in preparation for your first match. Sure, it's a triple threat curtain jerker on live TV, and sure, you deserve better, but the management will see that soon enough. So you sit down to watch the video from the one opponent out of two who bothered to actually say something, and he spends all of ten seconds addressing you. During that time, he suggests that you're soft because you have money, and you're a douchebag because you want to actually earn something instead of having everything given to you. That you're "one of those one percenters who gets whatever he wants."
Tell me... what do you think you'd want then? I'll tell you what I want. I want to kick your fugly head in. I want to break you. I want to make you sob. I want to bring you face to face with the Ugly Truth.
You are right about one thing, Bryan.
I get what I want.
With that, our hero is finished talking. He gestures to the person behind the camera, and the video cuts off.
